The theme of this exhibition harks back to ancient times – it concerns interpretations of the mechanisms this world operates with, its systems, codes and manifestations of intelligence. A lot of things in life for example deal with repetition, not only the mundane daily schedule, but the tasks within it rotate, actions rotate, input is followed by output, action triggers reaction, communication and response. In commerce demand is followed by supply, in nature oxygen circulates through breathing. The world works in a system of rotation, not only physically, but mentally as well. It is based on exchange, within an endless chain of evolution and progress starting with the body, nature and cosmos. Time, as a relative scientific construct for measuring the length of life, is only a human invention. It helps to see the same idea through centuries. Hynek Martinec’s paintings from the ‘Lost in Time’ series document this travel through time recycling imagery with reference to Rubens, Da Vinci and even quoting from contemporary art.

There have been a number of attempts to explain how the world works through science, religion and art. Whereas the results from science can create credible and fact supported evidence of how we got to where we are, religion can provide stories to adhere to, based on a belief-system of what is intrinsically good for us as mankind, what mistakes we make over and over and what remedies can be applied, empowered by the notion that there is something higher than us running things here and that that something can only be reached through the process of learning and flexing the brain’s ‘muscles’. Visual art on the other hand affords one of the oldest forms of intelligence. In its manifestations there are analogies with mathematical theorems. Every scientific formula can have its abstract pictorial transcript. Constant questioning led artists to work with symbols and signs that represent a whole set of universes – particularly in ancient Aztec, Egyptian, Greek and Indian cultures. The works by emerging and established artists in Encoded Systems draw on this heritage.